According to a report by the Sacramento Bee and McClatchy, Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, is said to be preparing a lawsuit against the Trump administration over such threats.

The sanctuary bill, known as the California Values Act, would add a new element to the standoff.

California already curtails how police can work with immigration officials. But supporters say the new measure is needed to reinforce the division.

“The Trump administration’s immigration agenda depends on coercing local law enforcement to be their force multipliers,” said Jennie Pasquarella, director of immigrants’ rights for the A.C.L.U. of California. “This bill says that in California, ‘We are not going to be those force multipliers.’”

Some law enforcement leaders are warning about unintended consequences. A primary concern, they say, is that the bill blocks jails from telling immigration agents about inmates who have in some cases committed serious crimes.

As a result, said Cory Salzillo, legislative director of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, federal arrests of unauthorized immigrants could shift from the jails into the communities, a more volatile setting.

“They’re going to find them wherever they are,” Mr. Salzillo said. “If it’s in the jail you don’t have this potential for collateral impacts on other persons.”

On Sunday, Mr. Brown said California’s approach needed to strike a balance between people who arrived in the state illegally years ago and created productive lives, and others who had committed serious crimes.

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He rejected the word “sanctuary” to describe that aim.

“As a former seminarian, I have a very clear image of the sanctuary,” he told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “It’s in a church. It conjures up medieval sanctuary places. And it says more than a specific set of legislative requirements, which the goal here is to block and not to collaborate with abuse of federal power. That’s the goal.”

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Photo

Martins Beach, near Half Moon Bay, has been at the center of a battle over private ownership and public access.Credit
Jim Wilson/The New York Times

• After a yearslong legal battle, a court ruled that a billionaire landowner could not block public access to Martins Beach, south of San Francisco. [San Francisco Chronicle]